NEW YORK  In 2002, three years after Tony Perkins began reporting the weather for ABC's Good Morning America, tourists who stopped by the show's Times Square studios still thought he was Spencer Christian, who preceded him in the job.

Perkins mentioned it one day to GMA co-anchor Charles Gibson. "I said, 'People are still calling me Spencer Christian. They're not getting it,' " Perkins recalls. "Charlie said, 'You know, for five years when I did this show the first time around, people called me David Hartman. It just takes time.' He's right."

The same four words — "it just takes time" — also might apply to GMA's come-from-behind fortunes. After six years of trying to compete with, let alone beat, network TV's top-rated morning juggernaut, NBC's Today, GMA is within striking distance: The viewer gap between the two programs has gone from 1.3 million to 270,000 in the past year.

Last week, in a move that got national attention, NBC blinked and acknowledged that Today needed its own wake-up call. NBC-Universal president Jeff Zucker fired executive producer Tom Touchet, who had run Today for two years, and replaced him with a morning-show novice, NBC sports producer Jim Bell. Bell is Today's fourth producer in five years. (Related story: More Today than yesterday)

Today needs to "get back to what the hallmarks of the show have always been: strong journalism on an agenda-setting news program," says Zucker, who took Today to first place when he produced it in the 90s.

With the race tightening for the first time in a decade, there's a chance America could be on the cusp of witnessing something that rarely happens in morning television: a shift in viewer loyalties.

The last time it happened was the ill-fated pairing of Lisa McRee and Kevin Newman, who replaced Gibson and Joan Lunden; by the time Gibson was called back and paired with Diane Sawyer in 1999, the gap between GMA and Today was 3 million viewers.

Now, will it be Today's team of Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, Ann Curry and Al Roker? Or will viewers switch to GMA's Sawyer, Gibson, Robin Roberts and Perkins?

Viewers slow to switch

Morning-show viewers are famously loyal; they get used to watching in their pajamas. Changing anchor allegiance has occurred just a handful of times in the 30 years since Today and GMA began duking it out for the title of America's premiere morning program.

But GMA "is now good enough that if you switch from Today to GMA, you'll stay," says Steve Friedman, who has produced both Today and CBS' perennial third-place Early Show.

GMA has adopted the quick pace of cable news, uses better graphics and is more consistent than Today with its mix of news and features, Friedman says. Today, meanwhile, "changes from day to day and doesn't seem comfortable in what it's doing — and consistency is everything in the morning."

He suspects that 488 weeks in a row in first place may have made "America's first family" at Today complacent. "It's not very healthy when every Thursday the ratings come out and you say, 'How much did we win by this week?' It takes the edge off. TV is better when it's contested, and now there is a contest. It's up to Today to respond."

Today co-anchor Couric says: "We want to make this show better and smarter. We're competitors, and we obviously would like to win by more, but we're confident that we produce the best show on television and will continue to do so."

Says her partner, Lauer: "Clearly the numbers are closer now. There's ebb and flow in the morning, and at the moment we need to push forward and innovate. But we're still No. 1. I'm not ready to jump off the bow of a ship."

Roker, Today's weatherman, says: "We had the field to ourself, and everybody has gotten better. Now we have to get better, too."

The stakes are huge for NBC and ABC. NBC is estimated to make more than $300 million a year on its three-hour Today franchise; the cash cow does wonders for NBC's bottom line. ABC makes an estimated $154 million a year on the two-hour GMA, but a move into first place could add millions.

Unlike evening-news and newsmagazine viewership, which has been down in recent years, morning-show viewing has been rising: Americans are getting up earlier. But this season, only GMA is drawing more viewers: 7%. Today is down 5% and The Early Show is off 3%.

The value of promotion

Morning shows not only help set the national news agenda, but as Today first discovered in the go-go years in the '90s with hits such as Friends, Frasier and ER, they're also powerful promotional vehicles for the networks.

The shows drive viewers to prime-time entertainment franchises, from NBC's Fear Factor to ABC's Desperate Housewives to CBS' Survivor. It's not a one-way street: Those programs send contestants and stars to the morning shows, which help draw viewers.

Since ABC has scored this season with Housewives, Lost and Alias and NBC's prime time is in a ratings slide, NBC executives are quick to tie GMA's success to ABC's No. 2 spot in prime time.

Though that's partly true, says GMA executive producer Ben Sherwood, it doesn't "explain the CBS anomaly. The network is first in prime time yet is in third place in the morning with The Early Show. There must be something else at work: We air the most urgent, relevant and watchable program."

What drives morning-show viewers to sample another show and stay there can be debated.

GMA news anchor Roberts, who is viewed as a probable successor to Gibson or Sawyer, says a certain "comfort level" at GMA has finally kicked in, one that viewers might have sensed.

"Come on," she says. "We all do the same pieces. It might be a different order, and we all get our fair share of exclusives. But people talk about morning TV being intimate, conversational and comfortable, and the thing they say to me over and over is, 'We would invite the four of you over for coffee.' That's the highest compliment."

Numbers out today will show whether the gap has increased or decreased. But in the past six years, Today has lost 5% and GMA has gained about 22% — ever since Gibson and Sawyer were drafted to save a show viewers had abandoned.

Gibson and Sawyer were supposed to stay a short time until ABC figured out their replacements. Six years later, neither of them has any plans to move. But Gibson has been substituting a few days a week for Peter Jennings on World News Tonight while Jennings is treated for lung cancer; Gibson has long been considered a possible successor.

No time for celebration

After years spent getting GMA running smoothly, Sherwood and others are wary of predicting victory over Today, especially because GMA has yet to notch a single weekly win over its rival.

"Numbers will go up and down, but the pattern of the last six years is unmistakable. GMA is growing, and the Today show is declining," says Sherwood, who has been in the job a year and is credited with expanding on a foundation begun by predecessor Shelley Ross. "We all know there's much more work to do, much more of a mountain to climb, and this is the steepest and most slippery stretch."

Gibson, who beat Today with Joan Lunden during his first stint on GMA, is more bullish about GMA's chances of reclaiming first place. "I think we're going to get 'em," he says. "It may not be this week. It may not be this month. But there's a pendulum that swings, and people have begun to look around."

Sawyer, who once anchored the old CBS This Morning in the '80s, is cautious. "We all know that what happens today can be completely reversed tomorrow."

And she hints that the media would like to start a war between rival morning-show personalities, something she wants to avoid, saying that she is a big fan of Today and its anchors: "They're fantastic."

"I know it's jazzy to make it personal about each and every one of us," Sawyer says. "A lot of this high drama about what's going on and what has changed is a bit of a soap opera that doesn't take place in the minds of the viewers."

Couric at the core?

Perhaps, but after Touchet was fired last week, readers e-mailed USA TODAY and pointed the finger at Couric, saying the program now revolves around her.

Monday, New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley savaged Couric in a review, saying she had become Today's overbearing queen. Today, Stanley wrote, "has turned Couric's popularity into a Marxist-style cult of personality. The camera fixates on Couric's legs during interviews, she performs in innumerable skits and stunts, and her clowning is given center stage even during news events."

Says Couric: "It comes with the territory. I think she (Stanley) has written about my legs twice now. I'm beginning to get nervous. My legs are still sturdy and strong and serving me well."

But Stanley also criticized Sawyer, saying she handles interviews and banter with Gibson with "creamy insincerity."

(Viewer perceptions of personalities — so-called Q scores, performed by TVQ Evaluations, Inc. — show that Couric and Sawyer share the same high negatives: 16% of viewers rate both women "fair or poor," compared with 11% for Lauer and 8% for Gibson. But in terms of positives, 16% of viewers say Sawyer is "one of my favorites," compared with 12% for Couric and Lauer and 9% for Gibson.)

In an e-mail, reader Bill Kauzlarich of Farmington, Ill., wrote, "I'm a big fan of Katie (love those legs and heels), but she sure seems full of herself."

Monday, in a letter to USA TODAY, Mokhtar and Sohair Hamada of St. Louis asked whether Touchet was the problem or whether Couric had made viewers such as themselves switch to GMA. "Is it the producer whose name and face we have never seen on the Today show, or is it the lead anchor Katie Couric? Or is it both?" they asked.

Shirley White of Birmingham, Mich., wrote: "Katie's style has evolved into a know-it-all interviewer who constantly speaks over her guests and at times comes off abrasive."

"Are people tired of me?" Couric asks. "I hope not. I continue to love doing the show. I think familiarity for people is a great thing, particularly in the morning. I really think as personality-driven as these shows are, they're very content-driven as well."

Something's going on, GMA's Gibson says.

"I hope there's a comfort level with the program and that people feel at ease with us, but I don't know. I hope whatever trend is going on continues. I've done this program when it was first, and I've done this program when it was second. And first is better."